This blog is a space for me to share the wonders of parenthood, my experiences with my twin toddler boys, my new little baby, and my big baby – my husband!

Tag Archives: art and creativity

This summer has been filled with books for us. In fact, since the past 4 months, we have dived headlong into the fascinating and magical world of Roald Dahl. And while the boys boys are reading quite a lot of stuff on their own, we have been reading all our Roald Dahls together, snuggled by the book cupboard on our reading rug, or curled up comfortably on the bed before turning in for the day. We have gone through James and the Giant Peach, Matilda, Charlie and the Chocolate factory, BFG (our favorite so far), Esio Trot, The Giraffe and the Pelly and Me, and of course, The Enormous Crocodile. Each book has been a roller coaster ride and the BFG especially has given us so many fun things to joke about.

I came up with the idea of working with the kids to make a board game based on these books. The kids loved the idea and we started thinking about it very seriously. We sat down and first thought about the type of game we wanted. We decided on something similar in concept to Snakes and Ladders…with the snakes and ladders replaced by characters from the books.

The three boys had many discussions and we maintained a list in a notebook. We put down the good and “bad” characters and chose between different characters on the list. So, for example we chose between several Giants from the BFG and decided to go with the Blood Bottler. We felt we really needed to have Trunchbull to toss a player far far out and down. The board was to be a track …a chocolate river with different characters on different numbers who would wither help us move ahead or pull us back. The planning part took several days which were spread out over a couple of weeks.

Finally, once we felt satisfied with our choices of characters and different elements we made a rough sketch of what we thought it should look like.

Then I sat and sketched it out on a canvas and painted it with acrylic. The boys helped too and did some bits of the painting.

Finally it was ready and the boys could not wait to start playing. They have been playing on it constantly since it got done a couple of days ago and are still coming up with thoughts and ideas for potential additions.

This was a great exercise because it allowed the boys to think much harder about different characters, about their specific likes and dislikes in the books as well as their ability to contribute to making the game more exciting. We had healthy (and not such healthy) discussions on the choice of giants and witches and the colors to be used but we completely enjoyed the process. And now the boys are so thrilled with it..they are proud of their ideas, super kicked when someone gets stuck on Veruca Salt’s old bubblegum or gets flung by the Trunchbull. It is even more exciting to land on a spot where the BFG gently blows you with his dreams into a sweeter spot or when you can jump on jelly beans to a higher number. It is great for practicing math skills too – as the kids are recognizing numbers on dice counting, counting on, adding, subtracting and strategizing. But more than anything else, is is plain and simple fun!

I have recently found myself in an array of preschools across the country…on a spectrum of affordability and quality. With a few (very few) exceptions, through all the differences of socio-economic backgrounds, space, resources and quality, one feature remained alarmingly constant. Creative art …or rather, the lack thereof. Most preschool classrooms I walked into had cookie cutter art (if at all). 40 similar looking cats stared down at me in one class from the display wall, 35 identical paper plate faces dangled from a string running across the classroom. Green trees with brown barks and red flowers with green stems stood predictably next to square houses with triangular roofs with chimneys (certainly not something a Bombay kid sees outside on the streets). And I am sure next will have diyas with golden cut out paper flames adorning the walls. The work is measured, dictated as a task, the lines too neat to be cut by children, the vision too narrow to have come from a preschoolers imagination. Where was rthe art of self expression? The splash of color as a child discovers how his brush can glide across a paper? Where are the bold strokes of an artist just finding himself, the smudges as he erases and tries again? Where are the polka dotted tigers and the men with three eyes? Why does art have to end up as a product to be displayed neatly on the wall?

I got talking about this with a friend who has a toddler of her own and she sheepishly admitted that she was guilty of the same thing at home. Sitting down with her toddler to paint, she wanted something to show for it, something that looked pretty, something that could go onto Facebook or Instagram or the wall. A paper bruised and tearing with watery paint did not make the cut even if the child labored over it. And a crookedly cut greeting card with jagged edges and part of the painting cut off could not be sent to a doting aunt. And so it is that we forget the reason for children doing art and focus on what the adult gets out of it…a product.

I keep saying this on my blog and to people who care to listen…art is a process…there are no samples or instructions for the child to follow – it is an opportunity for toddlers and preschoolers to experiment with materials and media…to watch the ‘magic’ as blue and yellow merge to make green.

There are no mistakes and nothing an adult needs to correct or change. The art is an experience the child chooses and owns. There is no “color quickly, color within the lines” or “use the correct colors”.

And while it may look like “nothing” it is something the child has created on her own. Process based art helps children relax and enjoy art, it allows them to express themselves and not feel judged. They move from whole arm movement to finer motor skills as their muscles get ready to do more complex work. And eventually you will get your masterpiece…but while you wait, allow them to enjoy their million masterpieces – for each one holds meaning of some kind, and even if it does not, it is a free and joyful expression that builds confidence, motor skills, creative thinking and a lot more!

We have been playing with cut up foam pieces for a long time now. But recently I came across a few sets of foam created by JodoGyan called Rangometry (www.jogogyan.org).

The foam is thick and sturdy and the pieces lend themselves to endless tessellations and combinations. Initially I let the boys simply explore the sets. They made all kinds of things using the pieces. The set has squares, triangles of two different types, diamonds, and hexagons.

Finally this morning as we were enjoying a chilled out morning in the balcony, I thought of pulling out the rangometry kit. This time we first played a game (an activity I learned about at the JodoGyan workshop called Sajaana). I drew an outline of a bus using a marker on the plexiglass sheet along our balcony railing. Then using a large dice each child rolled, identified the number rolled and picked out the matching number of pieces of rangometry foam which they placed along the outline. (Note: we had poured the foam pieces into a bowl of water. The made them wet and they adhered easily to the plastic sheet we were playing on) Since the twins are comfortable with numbers upto 10 we used a 12 sided dice (dodecahedron) which has numbers from 0-10 (5 is repeated once). It was great because here is what was happening as we played:

the kids had to identify the number on the dice face correctly

They had to then pick out the corresponding number of foam bits from the bowl

They had to then put those pieces in continuation on the outline of the bus (fine motor skills)

They quickly figured out bigger and smaller numbers, getting most excited when they got high numbers like 8 or 9 or 10 and a little sad when they got 3, 2 or 1

They – especially the 3 yr old got the meaning of zero – it means nothing!! as he exclaimed when he rolled it and could not put anything on the outline. (It is useful to follow JodoGyan advice here – when a kid rolls a zero, do not give him another turn because not giving him another turn allows him to understand and appreciate the value of zero)

We got quite a pretty outline with the kids trying to make patterns as they went along.

After we were done with this, I started playing with the pieces and started out a tessellation type design. I found Nish (5 yrs next month) was most interested. He observed carefully while I made pattern and then asked if he could help. With a tiny bit of guidance he started out and then was so fascinated that he went on and on…quickly inspiring his twin to join in too! I had not thought they would get it so easily but it was a pleasant surprise and they totally enjoyed it too!

And, since I have mentioned JodoGyan a few times here – you must check out their website. They have developed a math teaching and learning program preschool up that is pretty incredible. With a strong focus on the child, developmental appropriateness and simplicity, the program is actually very interesting and I would strongly recommend educators – especially in the preschool space to look at it. In stead of trying to cram the preschooler with endless numbers to read, identify and write repeatedly, moving into tens and hundreds and place value and complex operations, the program focuses on making math a concrete and enjoyable fun learning experience where comprehension is key. Given the general experiences in math learning across age groups it is indeed time to stop and look at math learning differently. For schools that are interested – they actually do detailed and very practice based training for teachers who plan top use their materials.

Note – I am not a representative of JodoGyan nor have I been asked to talk about it. However, I have recently come across their material and have been quite impressed – hence sharing this here with you!

We love art…ok that is probably an understatement..but my boys and I enjoy painting and crayons and coloring and glitter! A few months ago a family friend gifted the boys the most gorgeous coloring materials…we had fancy artists’ water soluble pastels, oil pastels, color pencils, watercolor pencils…a whole lot of shiny new art supplies! Needless to say we were over the moon.

Initially, the boys explored the color pencils..and then last week they moved on to the water soluble pastels (they have not yet played with the water soluble aspect of the pastels but have simply been dabbling with the pastels as they are).

The smooth almost delicious colors produced many oohs and aahs…but a better reflection of how much they appreciated the colors came through the amount of time they have been spending coloring everyday. Over the past few days they have spent close to an hour each day with their pastels..till we finally ran out of paper day before yesterday. For the first time since I can remember, we had nothing more to color on..no art paper, no one sided sheets, no used envelopes…So i sent and got them a sketch book each.

Nish sat for a good twenty minutes working away at something. When he was done he stretched, looked at me and said “look! I have made a sail boat in a storm”.

It was stunning! Sid looked at it and literally clapped! he asked Nish to help him make his own sailboat in the storm and the two of them got busy as nish advised sid on how to proceed.

Not to be left out, Amu wanted his sailboat too which nish obligingly drew an outline for. Amu of course wanted to do somethingh a little different so he called his art a fire boat.

Today we have planned to take a wet brush and explore how it interacts with the pastels. should be fun and am looking forward to some more gorgeous art.

I have not blogged in a while…it’s been busy…but I wanted to share a couple of art related things we did last week when the sun wasn’t shining and the skies were quite grey.

First of all, we had a blast with all our broken crayons. We took old some crayons and using cello-tape we attached them to the top of a plain sheet of paper. Then we clipped the paper onto our balcony railing and got started. Using a hairdryer we melted the crayons and watched them drip down in blobs and streaks. They melted faster when we turned the heat to the highest mark. depending on how and where we held the dryer we could make the streaks change direction. We could either let them flow down as individual colors or have them mix as they came down. At one point, one of the crayon bits got detached and slid down the paper leaving as really bold trail. This brought lots of oohs and aahs and the boys took turns trying to dislodge another chunk.

It was amazing because not only was it art but it was a lot of observation, experimentation and science too. And we got a cool piece of art at the end!

Another thing we did was to grate the bits of crayon onto butter paper. We folded the butter paper and then I used a hot iron on it. The crayon shavings melted and we used that paper to cut up pretty shapes that are now decorating the children’s bedroom window!

We also did some fun art with wax crayons and water colors. While we had done this before the boys enjoyed it a lot more this time as their art looked more defined. They drew with bolder firmer strokes and made actual forms – a tiger and a leopard (inspired by our visit to the zoo i guess).

They first drew on the blank paper with wax crayons and then painted over it with watercolors.

The results were stunning (so says the very biased mother) because the crayon work really popped out from under the water colors. We had a bit of a discussion on why the water colors kept ‘disappearing’ from the wax crayon colored parts and I guess one could take that discussion further if wanted. All in all it was a lot of fun with a bit of science thrown in too!

In a lot of earlier blogposts, i have stressed on how, for me, the process is more important than the product. Whenever we set up things for the kids to do, I try to keep the focus on the process…the thinking involved, the experimentation, allowing kids to try things out, ask questions, work at a pace and in a manner that they are comfortable with (and as long as they respect their siblings who are also engaged in the activity).

These past few weeks have been rewarding for me, in that I am seeing how the focus on the process has culminated in my kids taking ownership of their work, enjoying the process and demanding more.

We tend to do a lot of art at home. Every day sees us dabbling with paints or crayons or markers or another medium. I usually set stuff up and let the kids be. While Nish always has been into drawing that tries to represent specific forms (he started out with a car when he was about 2 – a curved line with 4 wheels under it) Sid has been more of a scribbler. He has always steered clear of form, preferring instead to do broad, dark strokes on the paper, and if it is paint then on his body – generally his canvas of choice. He went went through a phase of not doing art at all (or very little of it) after a trainee teacher at his school openly remarked that his art was not the greatest (kaccha puccha – or half baked if you please).

However, i continued to put stuff out for him, not forcing him but asking him to make a card, or color something for me. I rarely praised it with a simple – wow that looks great…instead, i asked him to describe what he was doing, what he was thinking of and it became a great opportunity for a dialogue that involved very creative thinking and verbal expression.

The past month, he has been regularly asking for paper and crayons and likes to spend time drawing and coloring. He finishes and proudly comes up with his work. Sometimes it still looks like scribbles, but sometimes (more often than not) there is little ambiguity about the crux of his art. And he continues to have a narrative with every piece! Today he spent close to an hour making multiple pictures for different people, including a mixed media project with sequins.

Amu, not to be left behind, spent an equally large chunk of time sticking mirrors and small sequins to make bright circles on a paper.

Similarly with music…all that singing and listening to music has now suddenly led to bursts of spontaneous singing by the kids – ranging from old hindi numbers to the carpenters to new hindi movie songs. Amu loves pretending to sing into a mike as does Sid.

It feels nice…satisfying to see that it helps to believe that this approach does work…that you don’t need every one to be in boxes doing the same thing at the same time whether they want to or can. Now can some of our preschools recognize this and start thinking about what this means to their classrooms?

Kids in general are action oriented…they love moving, shaking, dancing to music…they enjoy fingerplays and action songs and use their bodies without inhibitions in such creative ways.
Music helps children develop in a variety of ways…language and communication, self expression, imagination, pre-math skills through rhythms…it help develop concepts, evolve language…it is a fun, safe and natural form of self expression. Children enjoy music and movement and that ties so closely to their language development as well (Linda Carol Edwards).

I have been thinking about music and movement with preschoolers …. more because in recent classroom observations I found a very basic minimal use of music and this bothered me. And since it was on my mind i thought about getting my boys to interact a little differently with music just for fun and to see how it could also be used in a classroom. we do a lot of singing at home but i wanted to try something else today.

When they got back from school today i asked them to sit down on the floor and close their eyes. They obliged. Then, i talked to them about imagining that they were in a forest with the wind blowing through the trees, the leaves rustling, butterflies flitting about, birds chirping and different animals sitting or moving around. I asked them to choose to be something in the forest…a plant, a bird..whatever they felt like being. Then i put on some nice instrumental music (i used Kenny G). It was really wonderful to watch them…Sid became a tree and Nish decided to be a spotted hyena. Amu was just amu…running around to the music! The tree soon became a baby hyena and the two hyena boys crept through the forest doing a most rhythmic and graceful frolicky chase to the music.
For the next song we mirrored each other and for the third song each person came to the center and danced while the other three watched him/her (this was Sid’s idea). we danced slowly, fast, shaing a lot, swaying gently, gliding, jumping, sitting, rolling…exploring space, rhythm, force and emotions through the music and our actions…this activity lasted for a little over 30 minutes and we all had a lovely time.

Something one can do in a preschool classroom quite easily…it required very little set up, was not very noisy and taught the boys to listen, appreciate, express themselves creatively. They also had to respect each others space in the process and learn to wathc and observe each other and learn from that.

The boys enjoyed it…and i did too! Will be doing more stuff with music and movement and will keep you posted!

we had 3 cardboard cartons (all intact) at our place last month (it just so happened that we had 3..which was indeed lucky)…i asked the boys if they would like to make something with the boxes. I sat with Sid and Nish, my four yr old twins, and we checked out options on pinterest…naturally they gravitated towards cars (though nish quite interestedly said we could work on a doll house next time).

Before getting started I asked the boys to think about what they wanted their car/vehicle to be like. We had very different approaches to the whole process. Nish sat and planned out exactly what he wanted ..the color, the kind of car (it needs to be like McQueen), what he would paint…what he would stick, what he may need help with. he thought long and hard about whether he wanted a car he could sit in on the floor or whether he wanted one that he cold carry and run about in (he opted for the latter). Sid on the other hand just decided he would do a ‘blue car’ (“it’s a friend of mcqueen” he explained). He was pretty clear he would work through the thinking part as we went along and was categorical that he wanted no help whatsoever. Amu generally joined in the action, more interested in what was happening than actually trying to plan anything or do much.

Nish chose his red paint and went about making neat strokes to cover the carton completely while Sid used a combination of a shaving brush and a sponge to cover his carton. Amu also chose a sponge and really enjoyed squeezing the paint out and spreading it with large smooth strokes (all over the carton and himself). he intermittently dabbed some blue on Nish’s pristine red mcqueen and we almost had a couple of meltdowns. Fortunately once i showed Nish how to paint over the intruding blue paint he was back in control. Nish asked me to cut out specific stuff that he stuck and decorated his car with while Sid was focused on doing things himself. it was evident he did not have a plan but he enjoyed gluing lots of stuff onto his ‘funky dashboard” of his “super cool car”. AMu basically painted his in patches, stuck a couple of things and then moved onto other stuff.

The boys were so proud of their cars when they got done and i finished up for them by putting ribbons for shoulder straps so they could pretty much ‘wear the cars’. Then we had McQueen and his blue friend zipping all over the family room with little Amu in tow.

Really a lot of fun…the process and the product…i feel like pushing the boys to think was nice – it allowed Nish to conceptualize,imagine.. create a plan of action to get to the finished product. With Sid, it was lovely watching him come up with ideas on the fly, he was also on task for nearly 40 minutes…painting…waiting for the paint to dry, sticking things and decorating, etc.

It’s a great activity to push for creative thinking, conceptualizing, fine motor skills, just getting kids to focus and work on something that interests them!

It’s been a month now and the cars are still going strong. Definitely a fun project and i am now looking forward to doing the dollhouse as an ongoing project too.

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Just adding a little sparkle to paint can brighten up a super drab day so quickly. Day before was so rainy and the boys were getting restless at home. Earlier int he day i asked if they would like to paint but that idea was quickly vetoed. When the sky started to look an ominous grey again in the evening, I took out a palette, squirted some paint into each little depression and then generously sprinkled fine glitter (thanks to the Itsy Bistsy store) into each blob of paint. I pulled out an old chart-paper which has gotten wet in the rain and run color in patches and taped it down onto our plastic mat.

I pulled out some brushes, a few pieces of sponge and set up a couple of plastic containers with water. “Come to the balcony guys!” I called. As they boys came running up their faces instantly lit up and they oohed and aahed over the glitter. And the three little boys who did not want to paint were all on the floor collaborative painting the large sheet of paper. All the water stains soon disappeared under generous broad and thick coats of glittering shimmering paint and soon every singly part of the paper was painted on or stamped with the kitchen sponge! Of course the paint gradually found its way onto tiny toes and feet and legs and we ended our fun painting session with a nice warm bath.

The paper came in handy the very next day – we used it as a wrapping paper for a birthday gift!

I have picture which I have yet to upload but since I had a little time I decided to blog about this first and address the images later 🙂

Easy set up, easy clean up and lots of fun painting time! it’s amazing how a little bit of glitter can add so much sparkly to a grey cloudy day!

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We have this lovely book called Peely Wally by Kali Stileman. We’ve had the book for a while now and several months ago we had done some art and craft inspired by the illustrations in the book.

Today, after a long time, Sid suddenly remembered Peely Wally as he looked at the piece of art we had done inspired by the book.

he suggested we try it again. So i diligently took their old sheets of painted paper and cut up some stuff for them to stick. Nish joined in and Amu was not to be left out. here is what they came up with. I made a few suggestions but allowed them to work at it how they wanted to. Tomorrow i want ot have them write a story about the picture…

But, it is nice to see that the boys are looking at and appreciating illustrations in their picture books…illustrations contribute in so many ways to stories, adding details, nuances, irony, parody, humor…extending the pact between the reader and the book to a level deeper than the just the narrative.

here is an image of what the boys came up with this evening. It is surprisingly neat given that all three worked on it together!